TY - JOUR
T1 - Aspects of lipid membrane bio-responses to subnanosecond, ultrahigh voltage pulsing
AU - Joshi, R. P.
AU - Song, J.
AU - Schoenbach, K. H.
AU - Sridhara, V.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank J. Weaver (MIT), W. Krassowska (Duke University), E. Neumann (Univ. of Bielefeld), and A. Pakhomov (ODU) for useful discussions. This work was sponsored in part by an AFOSR-MURI grant (#F49620-02-1-0320) on Subcellular Responses to Narrowband and Wideband Radio Frequency Radiation, managed by Dr. Robert J. Barker.
PY - 2009/10
Y1 - 2009/10
N2 - Membrane electroporation is probably one of the best-known effects of applying external voltages to biological cells. Reports in the literature have focused on relatively long voltage pulse durations (100 ns-1 ms). Here we probe the very short ( 500 kV/cm) regime that is made possible by advances in pulsed power technology. Our analyses based on continuum Smoluchowski and Molecular Dynamics (MD) approaches, predict two new aspects. First, it is shown that pore formation rates would be dramatically lower than predicted by conventional theory due to their dependence on local pore area. Second, such high fields are predicted to affect membrane proteins and ion-channels, without causing electroporation in regions between the proteins. Hence, such high voltage, short duration pulsing should not be associated with electroporation alone, but rather be viewed as a novel vehicle that opens possibilities for a range of new electrically-driven bio-response phenomena.
AB - Membrane electroporation is probably one of the best-known effects of applying external voltages to biological cells. Reports in the literature have focused on relatively long voltage pulse durations (100 ns-1 ms). Here we probe the very short ( 500 kV/cm) regime that is made possible by advances in pulsed power technology. Our analyses based on continuum Smoluchowski and Molecular Dynamics (MD) approaches, predict two new aspects. First, it is shown that pore formation rates would be dramatically lower than predicted by conventional theory due to their dependence on local pore area. Second, such high fields are predicted to affect membrane proteins and ion-channels, without causing electroporation in regions between the proteins. Hence, such high voltage, short duration pulsing should not be associated with electroporation alone, but rather be viewed as a novel vehicle that opens possibilities for a range of new electrically-driven bio-response phenomena.
KW - Bioelectric phenomena
KW - Biomembranes
KW - Dielectric breakdown
KW - Modeling
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=70449389485&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TDEI.2009.5293934
DO - 10.1109/TDEI.2009.5293934
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:70449389485
VL - 16
SP - 1243
EP - 1250
JO - IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation
JF - IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation
SN - 1070-9878
IS - 5
M1 - 5293934
ER -